


The Colour of Wheat

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Bàwáng Bié Jī | Farewell My Concubine, Xi Shuo Qian Long
Genre: Crossover Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-30
Updated: 2006-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:18:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn





	The Colour of Wheat

Dieyi walks through the corridors and courtyards of the old imperial palace. His grey silk robe drifts as he moves, as insubstantial as smoke from cannon fire – or from an opium pipe. The drug has brought him here, filling his head with dreams half-lived, and it buoys him with the courage needed to wander through a place patrolled inexpertly by the Japanese.

He is not afraid of the invaders. By rights he should despise them, like every other Chinese, but Dieyi can find no hatred for the people who revere opera in the same way he does. He knows that not every Japanese has the culture and appreciation of Marshal Aoki. For every connoisseur there are a hundred savages, and Dieyi runs the risk of meeting them here.

But he is lucky. His way is clear.

He does not even know where he is going. The high red walls with their dark grey tiles seemed to lure him in from the sprawled city beyond. Denuded of its treasures prior to the invasion, the palace has been further reduced to a husk of its former grandeur. When the last dynasty collapsed, people said it was a good thing. Dieyi only mourns the loss of glory and beauty.

The corridors and walkways are empty. Last autumn’s leaves scatter and tumble in the wind that stalks the palace. It is cold, and Dieyi shivers. He forgot his scarf, and worry pierces the opium-fog of his mind. He could catch a chill; his voice could become husky and raw. Even as he thinks of it, he can feel a tickle in his throat.

He coughs: a little sound. He puts out a hand to steady himself, and coughs again. He swallows, closing his eyes to concentrate on the sensation. Another cough wracks him, and he feels weak.

A long time ago, someone told him that when he sang under the influence of a cold, his performance was truly heartbreaking. The pain of his role was easier to see because of the hairline cracks in his voice.

Dieyi doesn’t know if that was true, but since then he’s always forced himself to sing through physical pain. No wound is too deep that opera cannot fill it.

When the coughing fit passes, he opens his eyes. He sees what he did not see before: At the end of the corridor, there is a theatre in its own courtyard. A moth to the flame, Dieyi moves towards it.

The light in the courtyard is strange and subtle, shimmering like water in sunlight. But there is no water, nor a rockery or anything else to provide decoration, because the courtyard is dominated by the stage. Green lacquered pillars support a recessed vault painted blue, through which curled clouds swirl and silver stars gleam. Red silks billow; red lacquered staircases swoop. It is perfect: even the matting laid across the wooden boards carries a fresh scent.

Dieyi climbs onto the stage and walks to the centre. Beneath the recess he sings one note, pure and sweet. It echoes, intensified in the theatre roof and then rounded by the courtyard and its faceless audience of imperial buildings.

The note becomes two, and then three. Dieyi is transported by the sound that begins deep within him, seeded in the diaphragm and birthed from his throat. He is tempted to make a lazy scale, sliding his voice from one note to the next, but he resists. The last time he did a lazy scale, he’d been beaten so badly that Xialou had had to carry him from the punishment bench. He’d been ten years old.

So each note is perfectly divided from the next. Everything has its place.

He stops singing and walks to the left side of the stage to touch one of the pillars. It is as wide as him, and like him it bears the weight of the theatre. When Dieyi looks at his hand on the shiny lacquered surface, he is puzzled. His skin is pale, ghost-white with paint. His nails, kept short and neat, gleam with polished scarlet.

He touches the now-trembling hand to his mouth. A trace of red paint clings stickily to his fingertips. With his other hand, he feels the smooth matte finish of white and peony-pink powder masking and accentuating his features. When he looks down, he is wearing not plain grey silk, but a fabulously patterned gown of red and gold, striped at sleeves and hem with blue and pink and white.

He cannot feel the familiar weight of the wig and headdress. His hair is short and soft, one lock falling forwards over his forehead. Dieyi wonders if this is a rehearsal; but there is no one to sing with him.

The light takes on a hazy quality, the way it does when filtered through smoke. Dieyi wonders at the power of the opium. The drug has never brought him such a beautiful dream before. He sways against the pillar, wondering when reality will be restored. Behind him, he hears a footstep on the stage.

He turns to stare at this intruder into his drowsy world, and is pleased with what he sees. The poppy has given him a man, handsome and tall, wearing imperial robes. Golden dragons sport amidst blue clouds on yellow silk, and there is a black stripe from the collar to the right arm. On his head he wears a soft hat of yellow and black, and a long queue fastened with scarlet thread hangs to below his waist.

Dieyi is impressed, and smiles in welcome. He knows this man is not Pu Yi, the puppet emperor of the Japanese. He thinks he must be an actor, like him. No one else would dare to take to the stage in such a glorious outfit; no one else would dare to adopt such an imperious air.

If only Xialou could have half the command of this Emperor, he would be unstoppable; a worthy mate to Dieyi. But Xialou is weak and squanders his gifts, abandoning Dieyi and opera in favour of that whore from the House of Blossoms.

Dieyi pushes himself from the pillar and takes a few coy steps across the stage. He lifts a hand and drops it again, coquettish. When he glances sidelong, he is pleased to note that the Emperor is gazing at him with fascination.

“Who are you?” Dieyi asks.

“I am the Emperor,” is the answer; and Dieyi is surprised and then disappointed when the Emperor does not ask his identity. Then he assumes that the Emperor already knows him. All of Peking knows Cheng Dieyi.

“Should I call you ‘Your Majesty’?” he asks, flirting a little.

“Yes.”

The reply is abrupt, and Dieyi’s charming smile falters. He bows his head and offers a sulky, “Your Majesty,” before he straightens up again.

The Emperor’s expression is inquisitive. He watches with interest as Dieyi circles around him, but is certain enough of himself not to turn and follow Dieyi’s progress. Instead he asks, “Are you a Han?”

Dieyi frowns. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Why don’t you know?”

Dieyi shrugs, coming closer. He admires the Emperor’s eyes and wonders when it was that he last saw such a handsome man. The Emperor even smells imperial. Not that Dieyi knows what an emperor would smell like: the closest he ever got to a member of the imperial household was the old eunuch Ni, who stank of attar of roses and frustrated rage.

This man smells of lilies and musk, feminine and masculine combined. It is a heady, sensuous perfume, and Dieyi inhales it greedily, edging closer still.

He answers the Emperor’s question at last. “I don’t remember my mother. I never knew my father.”

“I never knew my father, either,” the Emperor says. “At least, not in the way I wanted to know him. These past ten years since his death, I have often wondered why he acted the way he did. What motivated him: and why I cannot be like him.”

“You want to be like him?” Dieyi asks, stepping back to survey him. “A man should be himself, unless he is an actor.”

The Emperor smiles. “In which case…?”

Dieyi drops his gaze, turning his head gracefully. “In which case he must lose himself to the demands of others.”

“Some would say that an emperor must be an actor.”

“I do not know. I would not presume…”

“Come, now. You are dressed as an emperor’s concubine. Surely such a role allows you some insights into the actions of your lord.”

Dieyi thinks of Xialou and Xiang Yu, muddling the man with the character. He puts a hand to his head as if it hurts. “My lord confuses his heart with his duty,” he says, thinking of Juxian. Surely Xialou would not have married that woman if she hadn’t trapped him into the false engagement.

“I thought all men were guilty of that,” says the Emperor gently.

“Not me.” Dieyi lifts his chin, proud and splendid. “My duty is to the opera. My heart belongs to the opera.”

“What, all of your heart?”

Dieyi does not answer.

“For myself,” the Emperor continues, “I believe the heart can be divided. This is the only way an emperor can rule. Divide and conquer. My father’s duty overwhelmed him: it became his only passion, and his heart’s desire withered and died. He became less than himself, but more than himself, because of it.”

Dieyi utters a trill of laughter and moves away, uncomfortable with the conversation. “You speak in riddles,” he says. “I do not understand. A divided heart is like a divided country. How can you hope to rule it? You will run first this way and then the other, and always you will be lost.”

“Not so,” says the Emperor. “The one who divides his heart must have absolute control over himself, so that even when he is acting foolishly, he is aware of it. He is allowing himself to act like a fool, because even this behaviour is a balance to his more serious aspects.”

Dieyi shakes his head. He folds his arms across his chest. “I could never be like that. It seems too rational, and I… I fear I am just a butterfly.”

“The world needs butterflies.”

“They serve no purpose.”

“They are beautiful,” the Emperor says softly. “They dance upon the flowers. They inspire wonder and admiration. Yes, we need them.”

Dieyi feels trapped. It’s easy for him to take empty compliments, but when there is thought and meaning behind them, however subtle, he twists and slides to escape. He studies the matting beneath his feet and is silent.

The Emperor looks at him. “You have not yet given me your name.”

“Your Majesty is not aware of it?” Dieyi cannot help the hurt in his tone.

“Vain creature, why should I?” the Emperor asks, but with humour.

“My name is Cheng Dieyi.”

“I thought I was aware of all beauty within the palace.”

Dieyi blushes beneath the white paint, feeling a glow of pride fire inside him. “I do not live here but outside, near the Bridge of Heaven.”

“Between Heaven and Hell,” the Emperor says, coming closer.

Dieyi is startled, moving back. “Heaven and Earth, surely, Your Majesty.”

“Earth can sometimes be Hell, or do you not think so?”

“Sometimes.” Dieyi stands still, feeling sad and tired. “Yes. Often.”

The Emperor moves closer to him and holds out his hand. “You are beautiful,” he says. “Come with me.”

Dieyi doesn’t want to leave the sacred space of the stage. He is afraid that, once he steps down from the wooden boards and leaves this domain of green and red lacquer, this world will cease to be real.

But he has never been able to deny a man who finds him beautiful.

When he is low, he will go with whoever utters that word, even if it is an insincere compliment. Then Dieyi can attack his own vanity as well as his desperate desire for affection. He can lose himself in the sweet sense of self-loathing that comes from playing the whore for no gain whatsoever, save for his own misery.

When he is high, he can reject those cockroach-suitors with the confidence of an imperial concubine unshakeable in the favour of her Emperor. Then he is courted by rich, powerful men who laud his beauty and bring him presents. It doesn’t matter that their gifts are not for him, but for his characters – flowers, jewellery, brocade and bolts of silk – because Dieyi finds it hard to divide the two entities. When he goes to bed with his wealthy patrons, he feels the same sense of self-loathing, but it is filtered through the pretence of being someone else.

And when he is at neither extreme of emotion, Dieyi cannot bear to hear the word ‘beautiful’. If he thinks of sex at all, he shudders. In this purgatory between two lives, he feels empty and bewildered. This is when he needs Xialou, but all that remains is the opium.

He doesn’t know how he feels now, holding onto the Emperor’s hand as he is led across the courtyard and into one of the buildings that faces the stage. Dieyi is grateful that the room they enter has a view of the theatre. It is furnished with dark wood and bright silks. An ornate European clock sits on a table, but he cannot see its face. Time does not matter.

They stand in front of the window and look at one another. It is a solemn, strange moment: a hesitation, almost awkward. Dieyi has experienced it before. People always think he’s breakable, when in truth he’s already shattered. He always has to make the first move. Perhaps it’s to alleviate the guilt of his lovers.

He leans up and offers a kiss. He’s surprised when the Emperor stops him, placing the fingertips of one hand over Dieyi’s mouth.

Dieyi worries that he’s misunderstood. He looks into the Emperor’s wide dark eyes, and reads in them only desire and tenderness. Then the Emperor rubs his thumb over Dieyi’s soft, full lips, wiping them free of scarlet paint. Only when he’s clean does the Emperor bend his head and kiss Dieyi.

Dieyi is used to this fascination with his mouth. Women want to kiss it. Men want to fuck it. He still marvels at his naivety when, aged nineteen, he agreed to become Master Yuan’s lover. He had only wanted the sword, but the price he had paid was in knowledge and sin; and once learned, it could not be undone.

That first time, Master Yuan had wanted his mouth. Afterwards, Dieyi had kept on the smeared remains of his make-up. It was not just a mask he could hide behind when he took the sword as a wedding gift to Xialou, given in bitterness and received with indifference. It was the only way he could deny what he’d just done.

Now he struggles to banish memory from this new experience. The Emperor is passionate but respectful, a connoisseur who knows how to draw out a response from one timid and unsure. Dieyi wishes he were nineteen again, so he could give himself to the Emperor and learn everything differently.

They go over to one of the couches in the window recess. It is wide, with a mattress covered in padded yellow silk. The Emperor sets him on it, and Dieyi lies back, passive. He knows what comes next. From his position he can see the sunlight raking through the courtyard. The theatre is upside down.

The Emperor tugs at Dieyi’s gown, unfastening it. The fabric rustles. Dieyi keeps his gaze fixed on the stage. Then he gasps in startled protest, jerking up from the couch when he feels the Emperor’s hands and mouth upon him.

He wants to say it’s not right, not proper; but pleasure steals over him and renders him weak. Dieyi claws his hands into the yellow silk. His breath spirals out of him, rising and rising like the spring tide.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He is always the one who gives pleasure. He is not the one to receive it. He is the possessed; his is the female role. To know what it is like to be a man, his manhood worshipped so skilfully, is something that’s been alien to him since the old eunuch Ni molested him when he was still a child.

Now he learns that it can be different, and wonderful.

Afterwards, the Emperor kisses him sweetly on the lips. Dieyi can taste himself. He doesn’t know what to do. When he reaches up to touch the Emperor’s face, he is rewarded with a smile.

“What is the colour of wheat?” the Emperor asks gently.

Dieyi doesn’t understand. “What?”

“The colour of wheat,” the Emperor repeats. “What is it?”

“Yellow,” Dieyi replies, confused.

The Emperor’s smile is wistful. “It can also be green. Sometimes at the same time, in the same field: green and yellow wheat together. It’s astonishing.”

“It is?”

“Yes.” The Emperor sits up and puts his hands on his knees. “Go out of the city this year. Go south. Cross the river, and you will see green and yellow wheat.”

“It’s only wheat,” Dieyi says.

The Emperor half shakes his head, his smile fading. Then he glances up sharply, as if he can hear something beyond the room. He rises to his feet, the yellow robe with its black stripe and golden dragons hanging immaculate. He gazes at something Dieyi cannot see, and then he turns to look down at the couch.

“Cheng Dieyi,” he says, and his voice is both soft and fierce with an odd tenderness, “I will not forget you. I will keep the memory of you with me always in the miji of my soul.”

Dieyi stares at the Emperor, silenced by gratitude. It’s the most touching compliment he’s ever received, and this time he knows it’s sincere. Suddenly, he doesn’t want this poppy-dream to end.

“Your name,” he says, “tell me your name, Your Majesty.”

The Emperor looks startled by the request. At first his expression is haughty, but then he softens. “I have many names,” he says. “But you can call me Hongli.”

It means nothing to Dieyi. He was hoping for a name that would reveal more about this wise, elusive lover who has come so suddenly into his life, and who now seems poised to leave it as swiftly as he’d arrived.

“Hongli,” he says, trying out the shape and feel of the name in his mouth, “how will I find you again?”

The Emperor comes close, kneels down beside the couch and takes Dieyi’s head in his hands. Dieyi can feel the warmth of his palms, the press of the gold rings on his fingers against his cheeks. He looks up into intense dark eyes and knows they will never meet again.

The sense of loss almost consumes him, and he tries to turn his head. The Emperor won’t allow him to look away.

“I will be forever in your memory, as you will be in mine. There are always times in life when we have only our memories to sustain us. If you need to think of me, I will not begrudge you. My beautiful Dieyi, we were born one too early, the other too late. Fate is cruel. Perhaps in the next life…”

The Emperor kisses him. Dieyi closes his eyes. He wants to die now.

But he cannot.

When he opens his eyes, Dieyi is alone. He is standing against one of the green lacquered pillars. The painted wood carries the chill of the day. He rests his forehead on the cold surface and then presses his lips to it.

He pulls away and is startled to see smudged red paint, the imprint of his kiss. Dieyi touches a hand to his mouth. He is not in costume, not wearing make-up. His lips are soft and clean.

A magpie chatters from the roof of the palace. It is answered by its mate, and the two birds clack to one another as they walk across the tiles, their black and white plumage glaring against the uniform grey glaze.

Dieyi holds onto the pillar as he feels his world tilt. Next to the magpies he is unimportant, grounded and flightless, bereft of love. He wants Hongli to come back to him, but how can you lose what you never had?

He sinks to his knees on the stage, where it is safe.

He wonders what is real and what is fantasy.

Later, Dieyi walks out into Tian’Anmen Square. Although a cold wind blows from the north, the day is bright with the promise of spring. There are clouds in the sky, dreams of white and grey tinted by sunlight.

He resolves to leave Peking. He will head south and find a wheat field, and there he will lie down amongst the green and yellow stalks to watch the clouds pass overhead.


End file.
